Re: [gentoo-dev] package.mask vs ~arch

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:01 AM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 10:04:54AM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 8:36 AM, hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> > This is still too vague for me. If it's expected to be short-term, then
>> > it can as well just land in ~arch.
>>
>> A package that hasn't been tested AT ALL doesn't belong in ~arch.
>> Suppose the maintainer is unable to test some aspect of the package,
>> or any aspect of the package?  Do we want it to break completely for
>> ~arch?  In that event, nobody will run ~arch for that package, and
>> then it still isn't getting tested.
>
> I'm not saying that we should just randomly throw something into ~arch
> without testing it, but ~arch users are running ~arch with the
> understanding that their systems will break from time to time and they
> are expected to be able to deal with it when/if it happens. ~arch is
> not a second stable branch.

Agree 100%.  I'm taking about masking things that HAVEN'T BEEN TESTED
AT ALL.  The maintainer knows that they compile, and that is it.  Or
maybe they tested it in a very limited set of circumstances but know
that other untested circumstances are important to the users and they
have definite plans to get them tested.

> In particular, I would argue that for system-critical packages, users
> should be very careful about running ~arch unless they know what the
> fallout can be.

I agree.  I think ~arch should break far more often than it does
today.  However, I wouldn't extend that to sticking stuff in ~arch
that hasn't even been executed.  If it is THAT unstable then nobody
will want to run it, and that defeats the goal of having more testing.

> Take a look at profiles/package.mask. You will see many packages in
> there with the description, "masked for testing" on their masks, with no
> bug references, that have been there for multiple years. My view is we
> should either get those masks resolved or boot the affected
> packages/versions out of the tree. If they haven't received rudimentary
> testing by now, it is pretty obvious that no one cares about them.

Are they even maintained?

If not maintained, then leave them alone until treecleaned.  If they
are maintained, then I'd be interested in hearing from maintainers as
to what they're up to.  I wouldn't just remove the mask unless
somebody is actually going to co-maintain.  The issue of absentee
maintainers is a different one than masks, though obsolete masks is a
symptom of it just like obsolete ebuilds are.

Rich